


The Missing Major Caper

by darkauress (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Fluff, If You Squint - Freeform, Johnlock - Freeform, Quick Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 14:59:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7849603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/darkauress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If John Watson thought he'd have a normal life bunking with Sherlock Holmes, he was very wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Missing Major Caper

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I just felt like writing for no reason whatsoever. A quick mystery with some johnlock if you squint.

If John Watson ever thought that he would live a normal life after deciding to bunk with Sherlock Holmes, he was wrong. Every morning there was a new controlled experiment on the kitchen table, covered in plastic wrap or leaves or blood. Watson didn’t ask until absolutely necessary. This time usually came in the form of Lestrade arriving at the door, demanding to be informed before

Sherlock goes after the killer please, but that was hardly the point. Sherlock’s theories were always right. Even Lestrade couldn’t argue against that.

Science wasn’t an unfamiliar concept to Watson, being a doctor. But he hadn’t seen science like Sherlock did it. The crime scene almost always held all the clues. Unless the case was particularly vexing, Sherlock rarely spoke to witnesses or had to extend his search beyond the scene in question.

It’d been a few weeks since Sherlock’s last case when Lestrade showed up at the flat, begging for help in solving the latest mystery that arrived at Scotland Yard. Watson was beyond relieved. Sherlock, in his boredom, had started to design an experiment to test the effect of different drugs on mammals’ metabolism, and Watson had a sneaking suspicion that he intended to use Watson’s dog as a test subject.

“Look,” Lestrade said to Watson, standing just outside the door. “We need all the help we can get. The Yard is in chaos, and it’s only a matter of time before the press finds out we’ve got a case we can’t solve. I’d only need Sherlock for a little while -- “

“I’ll do it.”

Watson jumped. He hadn’t noticed Sherlock sneak up behind him.

Lestrade, however, was pleased.

“Thank you, Holmes. Do you need the address to the scene?”

Sherlock slipped past Watson and Lestrade, heading towards the flat exit. “That won’t be necessary, Lestrade. I know where it is.”

Lestrade stared as Sherlock exited the flat, then turned to Watson.

“How does he do that?”

Watson shrugged, then pushed past a dazed Lestrade and followed Sherlock’s lead in leaving the flat.

 

 

“I have an inference!” Sherlock announced, ceasing to pace around the crime scene, which was a biology lab. It would’ve been immaculate, cleaned to perfection just like any other laboratory, except for the counter and cabinets in the back that looked as if someone had gone through them in a hurry to leave, then forgotten to dismantle their experiment.

“What is it, Holmes?” Watson asked, shifting his position against a countertop and trying to rub the sleep from his eyes. Sherlock had insisted on staying at the scene until he had an idea about the case. A biology major from a nearby university had gone missing, her last known location the lab.

“See this experiment our missing friend has rigged up over here?” Sherlock said, gesturing to the far countertop. “It’s actually two different experiments, not particularly complex, probably just something she wanted to do in her spare time. She was collecting data on plant homeostasis and stimulus. In an effort to keep bias out of her observations, she asked one of her friends -- who happens to be her ex boyfriend, and a chemistry major at the same university -- to help her.”

Watson was comprehending this slowly. Lack of sleep made his thought process lazy and unconcerned.

“Why would she need to keep bias out of plant data?” Watson asked sleepily. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“She didn’t really need to keep bias out of it,” he said condescendingly. “She just wanted her ex to work with her.”

Watson shook his head. “I still don’t understand what that has to do with her going missing.”

“You’re missing the independent variable, Watson.” Sherlock’s eyes gleamed with the thrill of a puzzle, and he began to pace again.

“The what?”

“What changed, Watson! Why did they fall apart in the first place? Think!”

Watson shook his head again, this time to clear it. “Well, there could be lots of reasons. One of them could’ve found someone else, one of them could’ve gotten bored, he could’ve been abusive or something --”

“That’s it!” Sherlock said. “Don’t you see? In the biology major’s file, Lestrade wrote that’d she’d been to a therapist around the time he wrote they broke up. Her ex had a registered medication with the university clinic for his anger issues. Connect the dots, Watson.”

“I suppose,” Watson said. “He could’ve gotten angry with her the day she went missing. He might’ve said something to her that scared her, and she came back here. Went through her things in the cabinet, grabbed what she could. Then ran away.”

Sherlock grinned, a feral-looking thing on his face.

“Almost, Watson. She’s a smart girl, so she would’ve called the police, but she didn’t. Her ex caught her before she could, and is hiding her right now.”

“Hang on,” Watson said. “Why isn’t the ex missing? Wouldn’t he have to stay with her so she wouldn’t escape?”

“Right you are, Watson. He didn’t always have to stay with her. He had accomplices.” Sherlock stopped at the back counter, and started fiddling with something in one of the cabinets.

“Ah, here it is,” he said finally, emerging with a stack of papers. “It’s her lab reports. The one for these experiments has four names on it.”

Watson was confused. “But who could he get to help him? Who would want to help him?”

Sherlock’s grin remained. “Two other ex boyfriends who wanted revenge.”

Watson groaned and held his face in his hands. Sherlock laughed.

“This biosphere we live in is a complicated place, Watson. It’s in human DNA to be complex.”

“Actually, the contents of human DNA is passed on from parents to children through sexual reproduction,” Watson mumbled into his hands.

“I know we’re not plants, Watson, we don’t go through asexual reproduction.”

Watson lifted his head from his hands. “So where are the three ex boyfriends hiding the biology major?”

Sherlock poked one of the plants on the counter. “I believe this is part of the control group,” he said. “And the dependent variable was height measurement.”

“Holmes,” Watson said. “Are you going to tell me or not?”

Sherlock looked up. “Of course I’m going to tell you. Better yet, I’ll show you. Follow me!”

With that, Sherlock swept from the room, a harried and exhausted Watson scurrying behind him.

 

Scotland Yard was exceptionally busy after Sherlock caught the chemistry major and his two accomplices smuggling the biology major out of their previous hiding place: An abandoned lab that students were forbidden to enter. The chemistry major and his accomplices had discovered that professors and janitors also avoided the lab, and figured it a proper hiding place for the biology major until they figured out what to do. All three ex boyfriends were arrested, and the biology major stayed at Scotland Yard until she was assured that her university and the lab would have better security.

John Watson was pleased. He didn’t have a normal life bunking with Sherlock Holmes, but he had a hypothesis. If he were to leave Sherlock and the exciting life he lived, then he didn’t think he’d ever be satisfied with a “normal” life again.


End file.
